Telecommunications carriers provide access to communications networks. Sprint Communications Company, L.P. of Overland Park, Kans. (“SPRINT”) is one such public carrier. There are numerous public carriers all over the world, including for example, AT&T, British Telecom, Dutch Telecom, and France Telecom. Millions of customers can use a single public carrier. Governments and some enterprise companies have their own private networks. One such private networks is owned by the U.S. Navy (NAVY).
Cross-carrier communication, communication between carriers, is sometimes necessary. For instance, the NAVY may wish to establish a communications link from New York to California. If, however, the NAVY does not possess the resources to establish such a connection, then it may require the resources of another carrier to set up the connection. Given the current state of the art, automatically establishing such a cross-carrier communications link is problematic at best. Moreover, there is currently no way to automatically provide a cross-layer, cross-carrier, secure connection.
Although standards, when mature and accepted, can ease integration burdens, no widely-accepted standards exist to permit automatic cross-carrier, cross-layer communication. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has begun developing Generalized MultiProtocol Label Switching (GMPLS). GMPLS attempts to specify certain bridging-control protocols. GMPLS provides a unified bridging control for layered networks. Thus, generalized unified control messages can control several layers of network technologies (“layers”.) Generally, a layer is a group of related functions that are performed in a given hierarchy level.
Certain cross-layer communications may be contemplated within the scope of GMPLS, limited to a single carrier. IETF is extending GMPLS to cover a cross-vendor, but single carrier environment. No current effort is being expended to extend GMPLS to be cross-carrier. GMPLS protocols can provide one of the protocol-specific implementations of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON) generic architecture. Because neither GMPLS nor any other standard permits automatic cross-carrier communication, there is a need for a method and system for automatically communicating data across carriers and across layers.
Horizontal bridging, communicating between different domains or segments of a common layer of technology, is called Traffic Engineering. A domain is a grouping of network elements. Horizontal bridging refers to establishing a common-layer, multidomain, bridging control. Traffic engineering can be accomplished between packet layers, framing layers, or transport layers. Traffic engineering can be accomplished across vendor domains within the same carrier or can be done across multiple carriers. “Network Engineering,” however, refers to vertical bridging between different layers of technologies. A common-layer, traffic-engineering bridging control can be extended to cover a multilayer, network-engineering bridging control.
Optimally, a cross-carrier connection will attempt to satisfy bandwidth demands of the user. As described herein, one method for allocating bandwidth on demand is to dynamically access different communications layers. For example, if the connection was established at a certain communications layer, but bandwidth demands saturate the layer, a need exists to provide a method and system for communicating data across layers within a cross-carrier connection.
Automatic cross-carrier, cross-layer communication is useful, but another important consideration when setting up such a connection involves security. In the scenario listed above, both SPRINT and the NAVY would appreciate the benefits afforded by a secure data connection. A secure connection provides network-connection isolation and data-transmission privacy. Isolation of network knowledge is an important feature. That is, each network should not have internal knowledge of the other network's operations, e.g., topology and resources. Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system for secure, automatic, cross-carrier communication. The methods and systems described herein contain enhanced features for security. The present invention provides a method and system for establishing secure, cross-carrier, cross-layer communications path.